Scott looked over the briefing notes on the tablet he held one last time. The objectives were all relatively simple and straightforward, as was the mission itself. But he was experienced enough to know that it was always the simple ones that caught you out, and knew better than to expect anything to go as planned. The old axiom was 'no plan survives contact with the enemy', and with an enemy like Elysium, that was even more the case.
Flying and fighting a mission didn't have him nervous. Even with whatever weird and wonderful terrors Elysium might decide to throw at them, that was just combat. A series of actions and reactions, responses to things that other people were doing. What had him really nervous was that he was going to be commanding a squadron. It wasn't the first time commanding people in combat. He'd lead flights before, and been in charge of a strike here and there. But actually being in official, executive control and command of a unit... yeah, that was something that made the butterflies flying B-52's in his stomach do loop-the-loops.
He'd read all the files on the people he was going to be in command of; their records spoke for themselves and he was proud to have such accomplished men and women under his command. Doing them and their careers was going to be a big ask, but it was something he'd have to deal with. He'd passed the psych and profile interviews, and the paperwork was filed: it was too late to go back now. He forced the doubts out of his mind as he saw the time tick over at the top of the tablet computers' display. He rolled an eye down the list of names and glanced toward the door, waiting for the first of his new unit of aviators to arrive into the carriers' briefing room.